Robb & Stucky reopens in Sarasota

The Robb & Stucky brand has officially returned to Sarasota with the reopening Monday of its flagship store.

The 68,000-square-foot showroom at 7557 S. Tamiami Trail is the furniture retailer's third and largest store since the brand was bought out by a new company. Its opening comes amid a housing market recovery that is lifting the furniture industry as well as the real estate and construction industries in Southwest Florida.

Southwest Florida furniture stores sold $41.67 million worth of home furnishings in December 2012, according to the most recent data available from the state's Department of Revenue.

That was a 15 percent jump from the same month in 2011 and was larger than any monthly gain since the start of the Great Recession in 2007.

The increases have led Ethan Allen to move to a new store next year on University Parkway, across from the planned $315 million Mall at University Town Center.

While shoppers may remember the Robb & Stucky brand name and its upscale line of furniture and home decor merchandise, its owners are not the same.

Robb & Stucky International is controlled by Taiwan's Samuel Kuo family, which acquired the Tamiami Trail property for $7.4 million from a unit of General Electric Commercial Business Property Inc. after the original owners succumbed to bankruptcy in 2011.

The GE unit had paid $10.5 million in April 2006.

“Robb & Stucky will celebrate its 99th anniversary (next year.) And yet, it's really a whole new day for the company," said Steve Lush, president of Robb & Stucky International. “Over the past two years, Robb & Stucky has been reinvented with new people, new products and new ideas that are in step with how people live today.”

The revamped Robb & Stucky brand will focus more on American-made products and custom furniture pieces and will offer a wide range of price points. For example, sofa prices will range from $999 to $3,000 and up.

Bacon's Furniture, which had leased the South Tamiami Trail building since 2011, moved to another storefront across the street earlier this summer. Bacon's sold nearly $5 million in inventory over the summer before moving.